Semi-final 2 is over, and now the last thing SVT needs to do is complete the running order for the final. This time I actually got to watch the semi (outside of Poland through Serbia due to running errands), and unlike the first (read: bloodbath) semi, I felt pretty confident that my favorites were going to make it through.

So all the Caucasus states are in the final, all the Nordics except for Sweden are out of the final, two of the three Baltic states are in (If only Estonia could be in with), and only two of the ex-Yugo states are in. And out of four acts representing Uralic-language speaking areas (Estonia, Finland, Hungary, and Norway because Agnete is from Sápmi), only Hungary, which was overrated as hell IMO, qualified for the final.

When Estonia is the only Baltic country out of the finals___Source: frustrated Jüri on Twitter

This time I don’t feel the need to swap out any undeserved qualifiers. The ones that didn’t make it either a) were really low in the odds to begin with, b) didn’t reach through the TV screen as well. Out of the performances that didn’t go through, I just have to ask a few questions:

Ireland: The lyrics mention sunlight. I understand that Ireland doesn’t get as much sun as other countries, but maybe the sun depicted on the background could be yellow instead of red? If the sun is red a) it’s not emitting as much energy out, b) it’s dying, and c) it would probably swallow the earth. So I was a little confused. Or was the red sun supposed to depict Ireland’s performance record at Eurovision?

Albania: People on Twitter said that Eneda looked like an Oscar statuette. Why an Oscar when ESC clearly looks more like the Tony Awards? (Then again, Oscar awards look like people while Tony awards don’t.)

Slovenia: ManuElla chose red at EMA in Switzerland. There was some purple, but no red in the performance. Did her printer run out of red/magenta ink?

Tonight I’m probably going to sleep well and just wait for the final running order. Hope it doesn’t look too biased towards anyone…

So yeah, people are pissed about their favorites not qualifying (still gutted over EstoniaL) and are posting about what’s possibly wrong with [insert country here]’s musical tastes and how great entries are ignored. The little issue is that the opinion of the fandom doesn’t represent the opinion of the general audience.

For starters, not every person watching Eurovision votes. If someone’s phone doesn’t have a sim card from a country participating in the contest, they can’t vote. Or if someone is watching from a nonparticipating country (so much for voting in the USA), they can’t vote. Then there are some people who are able to vote, but they don’t.

And even if every person in the fandom who was able to vote put in their 20 votes, the scores would still differ from YouTube’s “top 42 based on 1500 rankings” (given that this was accurate in the first place), due to the casual voters. They don’t follow the contest from the beginning of national final season; they just turn on the TV at 21:00CET, and they listen to each song for the first time. Instead of taking a few weeks for a song to grow from bottom 10 to top 5 in their rankings, it all depends on those three minutes.

I’m still annoyed about the ESC bloodbath semifinal results, but it’s time to move on to the next semifinal and save all the complaining for after the 14th…

Or at least Europe as a whole doesn’t, because Israel didn’t qualify L. I’m trying to not act upset like on Tuesday, when I already figured that Latvia wouldn’t qualify (even though their entry was pretty much on the same level of cute as their debut entry in 2000), and that correctly predicting 8 out of 10 isn’t too bad. Then again, when it’s one of your top 2 entries, it’s kind of hard to calm down. (Or I could just steal Norway’s lyrics and say that there’s a silent storm inside me…)

As consolation, Slovenia qualifying was a pleasant surprise, and the song’s staging had a bit of an Estonia 2009 feel to it. And that Switzerland qualified. Add to that the (somewhat expected) event of welcoming Poland back to the final J

1) Given that this is my first time predicting, 8 out of 10 isn’t that bad: My predicted qualifying entries for Semi-Final 1: Armenia, Estonia, Sweden, Albania, Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Netherlands, Montenegro, Hungary, while the actual qualifying entries in Semi-Final 1: Armenia, Sweden, Iceland, Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, San Marino, Netherlands, Montenegro, Hungary. Then again, no one really expected Iceland or San Marino to qualify.

2) It’s really hard to study for a 7-week class while watching the contest, even when the sound is turned of (Family still doesn’t approve of me being a fan XD ). Since I didn’t know if I could watch the SF live , I watched all the rehearsals (or at least the recap of them) and figured that the sound would have been pretty similar.

3) My sister will tolerate recaps, as long as she gets to make sarcastic remarks while she watches them.

Let’s see what happens in the second semi-final. It’s going to be really exciting for me, since most of my favourite entries are in this SF.

I don’t think I can decide which 10 I want in the final, because I like them all (though I wouldn’t really mind if Lithuania and Romania sat out). However, if Israel and Switzerland don’t make the final, I will be very upset.